


Haunted

by Aryagraceling



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Fills [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Family, Prompt: Homesickness, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryagraceling/pseuds/Aryagraceling
Summary: Krolia reflects on what she left behind.





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> Bad Things Happen Bingo, prompt fill "homesickness."

I never knew a child’s cry could sound like home. Crying was something to be ashamed of, all Galra knew, not an avenue to comfort. But mine...my child’s tears were the sweetest frustration as he clutched at my fingers. It was not the way of a Blade, but it had become  _ my  _ way. 

I meant what I said, that my ship crashing to the planet was the best thing to happen to me. The crash brought me a life better than any I had imagined. It brought me a husband, a child, a family. A home, though one rent by hungry cries in the middle of the night. Keith was never a steady sleeper, instead breaking the routine I’d carved out with his father over the years I was stranded.

We didn’t mind.

It could have been anything that made him so fussy. Pain, discomfort, a breeze blowing his hair the wrong way--I didn’t know how to bring up it could just be the blood mingling in his veins. Whenever he was around me the irritation seemed to fade, my presence drawing out yellowing eyes and the slightest hint of purple skin. 

I crooned to him, rocked him to sleep on the porch under the stars that were once my home. He loved when I pointed to constellations. His eyes followed my fingertip effortlessly, tiny fists clenching when I dropped it to tickle his stomach through the blanket. On the nights his father wasn’t out with the fire department, he assisted me in training Keith in the ways of the universe.

“Maybe he’ll grow up to be like you someday,” he always said. “A traveler.”

My reply was always the same. “That life is behind me, love.”

I loved them both, more than I’d loved anything in my life. More than the Blades, more than the mission, more than  _ myself  _ most days. Those days, my heart was conflicted.  _ Nothing matters but the mission  _ had been pounded into my head for so long that it was hard to fight the thought, but I did my best.

Those were the days I held my family a little tighter. 

I often dreamed I would have to leave them. The sickness the thought brought wasn’t so easily shoved to the side, and the nights I woke up panicking were reminders that the foundation my home stood on could crumble at the sight of a purple streak in the atmosphere. It brought on tremors I knew scared my poor child, so those were nights I simply sat by his crib and watched him sleep.

Those moments were the ones I remembered  clear as day. I’d sing so softly it was barely audible, and Keith would stop his moving around at the sound of my voice. Occasionally his father would join us, wiping the sleep from his eyes as he leaned against me for comfort. “Should be sleeping, Krolia,” he’d drawl, voice gravelly in the quiet. “What’s wrong?”

Sometimes I’d tell him, sometimes I’d just shake my head and give him a small smile. “I love you both, you know that.”

“And that’s why we should keep you healthy,” he’d insist.

He always was insistent on my wellbeing. Through the days, weeks, months after the wreck and beyond, he did his best to care for me with what was available. There was the occasional accident, discovering an odd allergy to Earth staples, but his love for me shone through his actions. 

It only deepened when I bore his child.

“Yorak,” I said.

“Keith,” he countered, and I smiled at the thought that the bundle in my arms would be growing on a planet so-far free from Galra control. 

“Keith,” I agreed.

They were precious to me. Earth was precious, far more precious than the wastes of space. I imagined it might be just as precious as Daibazaal had been to Zarkon once, and for a few brief minutes I considered there might be more to the galactic conquest than simple greed and seizure of power. 

Only for a brief time, though.

When the day came and Galra ships hurtled through the atmosphere, I felt my heart shatter at the realization I would not be able to save the fragile paradise I’d created for myself. We planted our bombs and did the best we could with the tools given to us, but in the end it was not enough. It never would be enough as long as I was there.

I left, and buried my tears in bombs and destruction of the empire that robbed me of the life I loved. I buried that love in the dust of dead planets and moons that orbited them. I buried myself in duty, because the only other option was to bury myself six feet deep and I didn’t want the chance to see my baby once more stolen from me.

Yes, crying was something to be ashamed of. Kolivan caught me more than once in the early days and while at first he was sympathetic, he soon turned to frustration. I was not a child, I did not deserve to cry over small things. 

But I cried for  _ Keith _ , and that was no small thing.

I cried because the same sickness that invaded at the  _ thought  _ of leaving him morphed into a never-ending ache in my chest. It did not get better with time. Even through every wall I put up around the memories, the ache remained. Through all the sleepless nights defending the galaxy, it remained. Through everything--the loneliness, laughter, and terror…

His cries haunted me.

His father haunted me.

_ Home-- _ the ineffable desire of a fractured heart--haunted me. 

Sickness haunted me with every breath I took, and yet I couldn’t escape the gravity of duty. Days faded to years in the vast emptiness, time slipping faster than my grip on the memories trying to bubble to the surface. There eventually came a day when I no longer cried, somehow worse than the days I did. 

That haunted me too.

My failure.

My love.

My home.

_ Everything.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments always read and _very_ much appreciated, and I always do my best to get back to them ❤️
> 
> You can also find me lurking and yelling about fictional characters on:  
> [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com/aryagraceling)  
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/cM8FaND)  
> [Tumblr](https://aryagraceling.tumblr.com)  
> [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951)


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